Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme: Tourism Businesses

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How much has been paid by way of loans through the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme to tourism businesses which are suffering from cash flow problems.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities, which is used to classify loans under the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, does not treat tourism as a separate industrial section. Tourism is spread across a number of sections, including wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants and transport. Of the new loans that have been guaranteed by the Small Business Service, where the application forms identify that the businesses are suffering from cash flow problems resulting from foot and mouth disease, four loans totalling £151,000 are considered to be tourism related.

HM Land Registry: Quinquennial Review

Lord Peston: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	When they intend to publish the report on the quinquennial review of HM Land Registry.

Lord Irvine of Lairg: I have today published the report on the quinquennial review of HM Land Registry. HM Land Registry is a government department established in 1862 for which I am the responsible Minister. In 1990 it was launched as an executive agency and granted Trading Fund status in 1993.
	I would like to thank the reviewer, Andrew Edwards CB, for conducting such a thorough review and for his most comprehensive report. The review has found that public confidence in land and property ownership depends on HM Land Registry's ability to guarantee title and to deliver its services impartially. For these reasons the review finds that HM Land Registry should remain in the public sector as a government department, an executive agency and a trading fund, while continuing the significant amount of work in partnership with the private sector that it currently undertakes. I accept the review's conclusions on HM Land Registry's continued public sector status and I have now asked my officials to take forward the review of HM Land Registry's Framework Document.
	I note that the review makes wide ranging proposals for the enhancement of the Land Register and for improvement in the operation of the property market in England and Wales. It also provides a timely contribution to the debate on the future of e-conveyancing and land registration services. While some of the recommendations are consistent with programmes of reform already under way, others are more radical and wide-ranging. I have therefore asked officials from the Lord Chancellor's Department and HM Land Registry to examine the recommendations carefully with officials from other interested government departments. Together with colleagues, I will wish to assess the more wide-ranging and radical proposals, including, in particular, their implications for, and impact on, other government initiatives, before reaching conclusions on the best way forward in this important area. I intend to publish in the autumn a plan for taking forward the wider recommendation contained in the report once this more detailed consideration has been completed.
	Copies of the report and a summary of its recommendations have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.